Identity
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: Who is Iris without Dahlia? [Major AA3 spoilers]


Iris wears her own skin like a body bag.

Who is Iris, she asks in front of the mirror. Who is Iris? Iris Hawthorne, Iris Fey, Iris of Hazakura. None of those people exist to her. The mirror's answer is that the face she sees is a girl named Dahlia, not a girl named Iris. The girl in the mirror is called Dahlia and she's dead but Iris sees her face every day.

The nightmares come every night and even when Bikini is there sitting beside the bed without fail every time she wakes up, she still feels like the only presence next to her is Dahlia, Dahlia, Dahlia.

The question is not who is Iris, not really. The question is closer to: Who is Iris without Dahlia?

The scissors are cold in her hand. Her reflection is clouded over by the dust and dirt on the mirror's surface. Her hair hangs long and dark, like a black curtain framing her face. Iris raises the scissors, like a soldier raising a rapier in battle, and snips.

There is dead silence in her quaint, simple room.

She doesn't know what she was expecting. Would Dahlia come back from the dead again—-she can't believe she has to add _again_ to that—-and claim her body, screaming that Iris is the only memory of her left in the world, that Iris is a walking testament to Dahlia's existence and without her, there was never a Dahlia?

Who is Iris without Dahlia?

You cannot use a Magatama on yourself. You can never truly know what of your own thoughts are lies. You need someone else, someone to untangle the mysteries inside you because the reason we lie is because we want to believe ourselves. Your own Psyche-Locks are ones you can never unlock on your own.

Unless, of course, you just stop lying.

Iris snips another strand of hair.

The _clink_ of the scissors resonates throughout the room. Iris remembers the only time she ever saw her sister afraid. They were children, playing on the suspension bridge on one of Dahlia's rare visits. The wind made their cheeks red and made the bridge sway slightly, just enough for Dahlia's face to turn momentarily panicked.

"What if I fall?" She asked.

"If you fell, I'd catch you," Iris had answered simply. And she'd felt a little safer too, because if she caught Dahlia, then of course Dahlia would return the favor and catch her in return.

Perhaps it was time she caught herself.

Another snip.

This time bigger, a chunk of hair falling to the floorboards. Her hair is uneven now, half her head missing most of it and the other half with the curtain still covering it. It's as though part of her is still hiding, cowering from the idea of letting go.

"Love is not letting someone else do horrible things without saying anything," Bikini had said to her gently after a particularly bad nightmare. "And I know you know that."

"Feenie," she'd said hoarsely, her mind a whirl. The world was dark and terrifying and suddenly all she wanted was to be pretending to be someone else again and be in his strong, warm arms again, wishing that she'd been born her sister.

"Do you remember what you liked about Feenie?"

"He…he didn't hide his feelings. He had so many and he wasn't ashamed of any of them."

Bikini stroked her hair. "Then think about that. Think about him and all of his feelings, and all of yours. If your heart doesn't want you to go to sleep, stay awake and think. Soon enough you'll find that your thoughts have settled themselves and you'll be back to sleep."

With the third snip and the third falling away of hair, Iris realizes something.

The only thing that made Dahlia's plans succeed was _her._ Her, Iris, and her unwavering love and devotion. And Iris used to guilt herself about that, used to feel as though it meant she was a criminal in her own right. But now, with one bundle of long hair left hanging, she realizes that without Dahlia, there is Iris.

Without Dahlia, there is the love and devotion and kindness of Iris. Without a Dahlia, there is only an Iris. That love and devotion and kindness remains. Only Dahlia and her far-fetched schemes and wild emotions and cackling laugh is what's missing. There is still Iris, and the faith of Kurain dictates that all things happen for a grand reason, and if Iris is left behind while Dahlia is gone, it must be for a reason.

Iris snips the last strand.

Who is Iris without Dahlia?

Iris thinks she knows now.

* * *

><p><strong>An accurate title for this would be 'Gggooddammnnn I love Iris Hawthorne'<strong>


End file.
